Flexible Clay

The photo above is a 4-stranded braid made out of flexible copper clay, by Hope Weiner.

Bronze and copper clay powder make wonderful flexible clay. In fact, they are even nicer to work with than flexible silver clay. They feel like soft leather, and stay this way for a long time. The directions for making flexible clay are the same as in ny book: The Handbook of Metal Clay: Textures and Forms.

However, glycerin does not burn well in carbon. When you fire flexible clay, make sure to cover the pieces with a very thin layer of carbon for the first phase of firing. Don’t use a lid. To be on the safe side, you can either extend the length of the first phase, or repeat the second phase twice.

These photos show some more flexible clay pieces that I made out of bronze clay powder.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

From my experience, extending the length of time does not improve the sintering results as firing twice. The cooling in between firings plays a role. In this case, though, I can’t be sure that the braid did not sinter the first time (meaning after the 2 phases of firing.

I did a double firing on mine (1100 full ramp for 45 minutes, cooled kiln to about 200 – impatient me – then fired at 1470 full ramp for 2 hours. All pieces were VERY brittle, and I basically lost the entire set to breakage. I’m thinking they were too deep in the carbon. Anyone else have trouble? Also, I found the glycerin in the cake decorating section of Michael’s Crafts for anyone who’s having trouble finding it. I’m wondering too what the clay/glycerin ratio should be. The clay turned out flexible, but it cracked in places if I tried to curve it too much.

Jennifer, When you use glycerin you need to hold longer at the first phase to let the glycerin burn out. It’s ok to cool to 200-250F. The clay will be more flexible if you use traditional copper and bronze, not the Quick-fires.

quick question: do you plan to sell The Handbook of Metal Clay: Textures and Forms or any of your other books in digital format? If not would you pls consider it as I would love to be able to read & use your books as soon as the payment processes.